


Polaris

by allintuta



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Huddling For Warmth, Loss of Virginity, Miqo'te Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Named Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Post-Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:29:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28136973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allintuta/pseuds/allintuta
Summary: The Warrior knows she’ll always have a home in Ishgard, and she can think of no better place to take G’raha on their first adventure together upon returning to the Source. But with the walls of Fortemps manor steeped in the lingering regrets of a bygone tragedy, they find themselves seeking solace elsewhere.In which the inn room at the Forgotten Knight has only one bed.
Relationships: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light
Comments: 32
Kudos: 100





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I want to give a heartfelt thank you to Blue who was kind enough to beta read this for me and give me the confidence to share it. Thank you Blue!
> 
> Content warnings for: some discussion of body dysphoria, vague mention of past sexual harassment.

G’raha doesn’t announce his presence when he finds her sitting on the steps of House Fortemps. 

As the door is whisked shut by the steward behind him, he quietly takes a seat at her side. He draws his knees up against his chest to brace for the cold, trying not to think about how long she might have been withstanding the snow in silence.

The guard positioned at the foot of the steps offers G’raha a solemn look, but otherwise does not disturb the peace.

“I see you couldn’t sleep either,” G’raha says. He watches the way her fingers tap an erratic rhythm against the unforgiving cold of the stairs. 

“No,” A’lyhia admits with a sigh. “I didn’t think I’d be able to, but I had to try, you know? I owe Edmont that much.”

“He won’t begrudge you for it,” G’raha gently assures her. Would it be untoward, he wonders, to calm her hand with the weight of his own? “I won’t pretend to know the pain that you’ve both endured, but I feel I can say with confidence that you simply wanting to be here for him, for being willing to call this place home, is a blessing in itself. That you would do so even in the face of your own grief only makes it more meaningful.”

A’lyhia looks at him for the first time, offering him a weary smile. “You have a habit of giving me too much credit.”

“Perhaps,” G’raha concedes, “but you have a habit of never giving yourself enough. It’s a balancing act.”

“Says the pot to the kettle,” A’lyhia mutters. She lets out a shaky breath that lingers in the frigid air. “Gods, at times like this I really could go for a smoke.”

“Alphinaud wouldn’t want that,” G’raha gently reminds her, and he knows she must be quietly cursing the fact that she had revealed such a weakness to him. 

“I know, I know.” A’lyhia rubs at her face, never able to keep those hands idle, least of all when temptation is knocking on their door. “No, he wouldn’t want that. And I won’t.”

She winces as she stands, sparing a glance back at the Fortemps residence; likely contemplating going back inside, acknowledging that trying to sleep will be a useless endeavor, and that the most she can do is grapple with the guilt that permeates the very walls of the manor.

Instead, she pulls her coat tighter and points her gaze in the direction of Foundation. 

“You up for an adventure?”

___

The Forgotten Knight is still bustling with activity when they arrive, despite — or perhaps because of — the hour. 

In those nascent moments of a new day, all manner of Ishgardians occupy the establishment, from the estranged son of nobility to the denizens of the Brume. For the latter, the tavern serves as a refuge where they might raise their glasses and voices in a city that has so often left them silent, and A’lyhia shepherds G’raha through a boisterous crowd to try and find a table.

“I’ll pass on the ale,” A’lyhia says. When G’raha looks surprised by her choice — surely remembering her habits from the NOAH days — she elaborates. “Me and Thancred are trying out this whole…. What’s the word, abstinence? Thing.”

G’raha flushes. “Temperance?”

A’lyhia snaps her fingers. “Right, temperance. Not abstinence. Azeyma knows Thancred wouldn’t last.” 

She snickers at the thought, while G’raha occupies himself by trying to figure out if that odd stain on the floor might be blood.

“We’re trying to keep each other honest,” A’lyhia continues. “Look out for each other, since we’re both so…”

“Frustratingly self-destructive?” G’raha suggests.

“Says the man who was about to throw his arse into the rift,” A’lyhia says, flicking her tail as they seat themselves at a table. “And I think there are worse flaws to have.”

“The people who care about you would disagree," G’raha murmurs as he removes his coat, and this time it’s A’lyhia’s turn to look away.

“Well, I guess we’ll have to call ourselves even,” she says, finding the dour-looking Auri at the corner table to be less intimidating than the prospect of confronting their mutual disregard for their own lives. 

G’raha takes that moment to flag down the server and order hot chocolate for them; a request that garners a curious look, given the Forgotten Knight’s usual patrons, but she knows better than to question a friend of the Warrior of Light. 

“You sure you wouldn’t rather have a beer?” A’lyhia asks. “I don’t mind, really. You might as well take advantage of being young again, right?”

“I appreciate the thought, but being around you makes me feel younger than being a drunken fool ever could,” G’raha says.

A’lyhia regards him with a sly smile. “That’s sweet of you, but can I be honest? I would pay good gil to see that.”

“It’s nothing that special, I assure you.” G’raha fiddles with the sleeves of his sweater. It’s a miracle he managed to maintain an air of mystery for as long as he did, given that he’s so emotionally honest with his body language. “I just get a little louder. And, um, cuddly.”

“Hm.” A’lyhia leans back in her chair, and folds her arms as she sizes him up. “So is that the key to getting to hear you sing?”

G’raha looks like he’s longing for the safety of his hood; His ears flick to and fro, and it really is a wonder that they’d been so disciplined beneath that cowl. 

“I’m not keen on giving away my secrets like that,” he says. “You’ll have to work a little bit harder, I’m afraid.”

“A challenge,” A’lyhia muses. “I’ll take you up on that.”

The server sets down two mugs in front of them. They take a moment to nurse their drinks in companionable silence before A’lyhia speaks up again.

“Hey.” She reaches across the table, letting her hand brush against his. “Can we make a pact of our own? No more of this self-sacrifice nonsense. Let’s both live until we’re old. I won’t let you do it alone this time.”

G’raha, with all the boldness of the youth that he now has the freedom to reclaim, laces their fingers together as if to seal the deal. 

“It’s a promise,” he says. 

They linger like that for a moment, an innocent gesture that still kindles the heat seeping up the column of her neck. She chooses to blame it on the coat that she has yet to shed, and that G’raha has yet to press her on.

She’s grateful for his discretion. He pulls away quietly, but not before running his thumb against the pulse point on her wrist.

“My heart hasn’t given up on me yet,” A’lyhia quietly assures him, but her words are belied by the fact that her own fingers follow in his wake; confirming what she knows, yet can scarcely believe herself. “So I’m afraid you can’t, either.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he says, and it still astounds her how words of devotion come so easily to him.

“Well.” She coughs to clear the palpable sense of something brewing between them that she wouldn’t dare give a name to. Raising her mug, she says, “A toast. To our newest Scion. We couldn’t have asked for a better one.”

G’raha’s ears droop in that bashful manner of his, but he still clinks his mug against hers in acceptance of the praise. 

“I’m honored to be given this opportunity to stand amongst you all.”

“You make us sound so much more dignified than we really are,” A’lyhia laughs at her own expense. “We’re still a rather messy lot, when you get down to it. No need to look further than me or Thancred to know that.”

G’raha peers at her over the rim of his mug with a cheeky grin. “I figured a little eccentricity was a prerequisite for joining the Scions, honestly.” 

“Yep. A test you passed with flying colors after that ridiculous entrance you made that first day at camp.”

G’raha sputters on his drink. He averts his gaze as he attempts to regain his composure; a helpless cause, given the unabashed mirth in A’lyhia’s eyes.

“I was much younger then,” G’raha eventually says in the only defense can offer himself.

A’lyhia leans forward, resting her chin on her palm. “Ah yes, at the ripe young age of twenty-four. Practically a kit.”

He goes quiet in defeat and takes a compensatory sip of his hot chocolate. It’s only then, in that brief lapse of conversation, that he seems to notice the flavor for the first time. She could commend him for his valiant effort not to make a face.

“Ah. Hm.” He considers the mug before gently setting it off to the side. “It hadn’t struck me until now, but it’s quite…”

“Awful?” A’lyhia chimes in. G’raha nods, apparently relieved at not having had to give voice to it himself. “Yep. I remember Tataru mentioning that, back when she frequented this place. I didn’t have the heart to tell you.”

G’raha surveys the bar around them, as if afraid that he’s committed some unspeakable sin in the Holy See. He lowers his voice and clears his throat with the air of a man bracing himself to broach some taboo subject. “I had assumed that Ishgard of all places would have mastered the art, given the climate.”

“You would think so,” A’lyhia sardonically replies. She knows they must look like they’re conspiring something, given the way they’re huddled together. Were Ishgard still yolked beneath a militant theocracy, she might be concerned. “Ishgardian cuisine is something of an ‘acquired taste,’ but you can’t expect much else from a nation whose idea of seasoning begins and ends with salt.”

“I see,” G’raha says, considering the imposing salt lick that serves as the centerpiece of the table.

A’lyhia rights herself and sets her own bitter beverage aside. “I’ll have to take you to Kugane next time, show you a proper meal.”

The prospect of a next time has him perking up instantaneously. “I would love that.”

___

“Feels like it’s been ages since I last bunked with you,” A’lyhia says from the comfort of their inn room. She sounds oddly nostalgic for a period that was very much recent history for her; although G’raha supposes that the tales documented so eloquently by Count Fortemps’ hand could make weary even the most hardened of adventurers. Yet not even the Dragonsong War can claim the way A’lyhia’s lips curl in fond remembrance. “I suppose for you, it has been. Did you ever think about those days in NOAH? When you were living on the First.” 

More than he would care to admit. G’raha finds gentle ribbing much more palatable than divulging that memories of such moments had often been the only company enjoyed by a lonely old man. 

“It would take more than a century for me to forget your snoring,” G’raha says, feeling mischievous in a way he hasn’t often had the chance to be since his youth. “You could have roused the dead. I’m surprised Midgardsormr remained dormant as he did.”

His teasing is met with a pillow petulantly thrown at his face, but it’s a poor attempt at deterring him; if anything, it only serves to spur him on.

“You drooled in your sleep, too — which I knew because that dreadful cacophony coming from your mouth kept me up at night.” G’raha easily dodges a second projectile chucked his way, and his ears flick with obvious delight. “And let’s not forget that time you got food poisoning—”

“From your cooking, mind you,” A’lyhia interjects, but G’raha is relentless in his onslaught.

“—and I had to hold back your hair while you cursed the Twelve into a bucket all night. Your vocabulary when it comes to profanity is quite remarkable, I should add. I learned a new word or two from that incident.”

A’lyhia fixes him with a stare that could level Primals, but it has no effect on a man who has courted death for a near century. 

“You seem to have a penchant for remembering the most unflattering things about me,” she says. “I don’t know whether it’s sweet or concerning that you’d still call me an inspiration after all of that.”

“But you are,” G’raha insists, and he can tell she’s taken aback by the conviction with which he puts down her remark. He’s spent far too long hiding behind half-truths and secrecy to speak to her with anything but utmost sincerity; as she had so pointedly reminded him when all was said and done, when her ears no longer rang with the last gasp of a dying star. “The people of the Source may have only known you through your good deeds and heroism, but I consider myself lucky to be among those that know you’re just as human as the rest of us beneath it all.”

His expression turns solemn when he sees her gaze fixed on the ceiling. “You’re not simply a vessel for Hyadaelyn’s blessing,” he says. “You’re a woman, as charmingly flawed as the rest of us, who accomplishes great things despite whatever misgivings she may have about herself. I find that truly inspiring.”

She tilts her head to face him, and it’s his turn to be at the mercy of her judgment. He braces himself for the verdict, knowing all too well that she has a habit of giving as good as she gets. 

“You really have never given yourself enough credit, Raha,” she says, passing the opportunity to deliver a well-deserved drag of her own, much to G’raha’s surprise. “You’re always so quick to praise the deeds of others without considering the merits of your own. I’ll always find what you did for the First — hell, the First and the Source — to be remarkable.”

It’s the words of affirmation that manage to break through the bravado he’s maintained until now, leaving him incapable of responding to her praise with anything more than a quiet “I suppose.” 

He fiddles with the chain of his necklace. He never has been able to keep idle hands when his thoughts are anything but. 

A’lyhia reaches up to give his shoulder a squeeze. Her hands feel cold even though the fabric of his shirt, and the bolder specter of his youth would propose to help keep them warm. 

“Take the compliment,” she says with a smile. The crackling fireplace casts a gentle glow over her features, smoothing out the weary lines and shadows that have only grown more abundant since their days in Silvertear. “You’re a good man, Raha. You should be proud of what you’ve done. Of the person you’ve become.” Her eyes gleam then, and her smile turns mischievous in a way that doesn’t bode well for him. “A far cry from the little shite you used to be, wouldn’t you say?”

There it is. He makes an indignant sound that has her wheezing with laughter, but it’s not long before he joins in. 

“Living as long as I have has a way of maturing people,” he concedes. “No, I’m not the same as the naive—”

“Bratty,” A’lyhia says.

“The naive scholar you knew back then. I can only hope that I’ve changed for the better.”

A’lyhia squints as she measures him up, as if an entire century of experiences has been laid bare for her to scrutinize; and he knows that he would let her do so in a heartbeat, if given the opportunity. 

“I’d say the jury is still out,” she says, and she’s not quite able to keep a straight face as she delivers her verdict. “But, eh, could have turned out a lot worse, I’d say.”

“How generous of you,” he says dryly. He gingerly runs his hand along the end of her tail; something he’d admittedly thought about once or twice before, and she makes no objections to it. “I suppose you turned out to be a rather admirable woman yourself, all things considered.”

“You’re damn right I did,” she proclaims, hoisting herself up from the bed.

He watches as she makes her way over to the fireplace. She brandishes the poker as if it were a weapon, and he almost feels pity for the wood that will be on the receiving end of it. 

“Would you like some help with that?” he asks.

She dismisses his offer with a swish of her tail. “I’ve stoked a few fires in my day. Watch and learn.”

A’lyhia crouches down and jabs at the firewood with the same ferocity that he’d seen her use to conquer sin eaters. Her efforts are bearing no fruit, given the way she lets out a few feral-sounding groans and muttered curses that would have them swiftly removed from the Holy See.

“Dammit.” She stands up and glowers at the fireplace as if the heat of her gaze could enkindle the dying flames.

G’raha grabs his staff from where he’d left it leaning against the bedside table. A quick incantation has the crystal glowing with the same brilliance as the tower that had been its progenitor, and a spell breathes new life into the fire.

A’lyhia turns to face him, holding up the poker in what feels like a thinly-veiled threat. “Show off.”

G’raha shrugs and keeps his staff raised, completely unapologetic. “What can I say? You seem to have a way of bringing the ‘little shite’ out of me.”

“Cheeky little bastard,” A’lyhia grouses. She sets aside the poker — mercifully, for she truly had been wielding it like the pride of the Ishgardian military might a lance — and flops back down on the bed.

“Careful,” G’raha teases as he removes his sweater. “Such language is unbecoming of a proper Ishgardian lady.”

“Up your arse, Raha. I’m the spitting image of a lady,” she says, sprawled inelegantly across the bed with her chemise hiked up where she scratches at her exposed stomach. “I could teach these delicate elezen women a thing or two.”

“Truthfully,” G’raha admits, “I wouldn’t have you any other way.”

He begins working his way under the covers, leaving a somewhat befuddled looking A’lyhia to follow suit. 

The innkeep had apologized profusely for only being able to offer them a room with a single bed — the rest being taken up by traveling artisans contributing to the restoration effort — but the bed is large enough to afford them space apart, if they so desire. G’raha assumes that that’s what A’lyhia would prefer, given the way she’s fidgeting and fumbling with the sheets, and it’s a small comfort to see that her sleeping habits haven’t changed. 

“It’s still cold,” A’lyhia remarks. Her brow is furrowed in a look that’s equal parts annoyed and mystified, as if the possibility of Ishgard being as frigid as the traditions it had once been chained by had somehow eluded her. 

G’raha forgoes commenting such. For a moment, he regrettably finds himself lamenting the loss of the massive hearth and myriad blankets that make House Fortemps a haven from Ishgard’s hostile chill; but the apparent price of such luxuries has him quickly turning his mind’s eye away from such temptations. 

A’lyhia had never looked smaller than she had sitting on those steps, her lips uttering assurances for the rightfully concerned guards while the restless twitching of her fingers told another story. 

“Would you like my sweater?” he asks, digging through the folds of the comforter to see where it had fallen after being tossed aside. “It’ll be big on you but it should help.”

She considers it for a moment before rejecting his offer out of what he presumes to be stubbornness, more than anything.

“Wait, I have a better idea,” she says after a moment of deliberation that involves a lot of worried lips and scowling at the ceiling. She rolls over onto her side so her back is facing him, and there’s something almost ‘come hither’ about the way her tail curls. “C’mere. We can spoon.”

“Spoon,” G’raha repeats, and though he doesn’t question the efficacy of her plan, intimacy is an entirely separate beast. “I’m not opposed to such a plan but are you sure?”

“Yep.” A’lyhia punctuates the ‘p’ with a smack of her lips. “You're one of the lucky few that I would let be the big spoon, too. Savor the victory.”

“I suppose I can’t argue with that.”

He adjusts so that he’s pressed up against her back. She fits perfectly into the cradle of his hips, and as he drapes an arm over her, he can’t help but be moved that life had seen fit to give him this second chance.

___

“Been a while since I’ve done this.” 

“Hm?” G’raha’s sound of inquiry is slightly muffled against her shoulder.

“Cuddled up with someone like this,” A’lyhia says. She places a hand over the one that G’raha had draped around her belly, trying to coax some of the timidity out of his touch. “The last person I did this with was Alisaie.”

G’raha’s ear twitches with piqued curiosity, and she knows he must be regarding her with an incredulous look behind her back. “With Alisaie? Really?”

“Yes, really.” A’lyhia gives G’raha’s leg a playful nudge with her foot. It must have been cold, given the way she can feel him startle, but she can’t bring herself to feel apologetic. “It gets cold out on the ocean and she, being the upstanding young lady that she is, volunteered to be my space heater.”

“A noble sacrifice,” G’raha drawls. “One that I’m sure she made on her own volition.”

Another nudge. G’raha’s tail fluffs up with indignation at the chill.

“There might have been a little coercion on my part,” A’lyhia mutters. “But it was a mutually beneficial agreement.”

G’raha chuckles. His hold tightens, pulling her closer into the warmth of his chest. “I’ll try to live up to the standard that she has set.”

“I’d say you’re doing an adequate job.”

“Just adequate? You wound me, Lyhia.”

She never tires of hearing her true name grace his lips, though she’s far too stubborn to admit such a thing. She enjoys the intimacy of it in silence, savoring the sound of his steady breathing and the comforting heat he radiates.

It’s a relatively short-lived moment of tranquility that is soon besieged by a tempest of old doubts; one that has a habit of rearing its head when she permits herself to indulge in a little happiness.

“I still have a hard time figuring out why,” A’lyhia says quietly. “Why you still thought so highly of me when I was so cold to you, back in those days. I thought you hated me and then you just…” She trails off as she recalls how the sound of the tower doors closing had resonated in her ears, leaving her chest feeling hollow and her tongue numb with unspoken regrets. “You looked at me and still saw me as your inspiration. I didn’t — I still don’t understand it.”

G’raha shifts behind her. His tail brushes against her thigh, but it’s gone before she can enjoy the warmth of it on her skin.

“I was frustrated,” G’raha admits. “Frustrated and hurt. But I learned a long time ago not to hold grudges. I would have had too many from my youth if I did, truth be told.”

He laughs in spite of himself, but A’lyhia can’t bring herself to do the same. 

“And…” He pauses. She can feel the way he takes in a deep breath. “And I could tell that your feelings came from a place of pain. I didn’t know the details but I knew that you’d been hurt.”

A’lyhia winces as her nails dig into her palm. “That doesn’t excuse it.”

“No,” G’raha says. “But it helped me to understand it. Understand that your actions didn’t come from cruelty. And that you would still devote yourself to the betterment of a world that had wronged you, well. Truthfully, I can’t think of anything more admirable than that.” 

“You’re a kinder person that most, Raha,” A’lyhia murmurs. She takes a moment to awkwardly resituate herself in his arms so they’re facing each other, her chest pressed against his own. “Thank you. Thank you for seeing me as better than I was.”

He gives her a sheepish smile. “You’ve also failed to consider that I simply enjoyed your company. Once you had warmed up to me, that is.”

“Always the half-truths with you,” A’lyhia says dryly, but there’s a teasing glint in her eye that could only have been born from forgiveness. “I’ll make an honest man out of you yet.”

They stay like that for a time, their noses only a breath away from each other. He’s always been enamored with hers and the silhouette it helps shape, despite her occasional grousing about it not being ‘cute’ like those of her half-sisters. 

One of her hands rests against his shoulder, and his eyes follow the curve of her arm, admiring the way her olive skin contrasts with the pallor of his own, to her prominent collarbones that jut above the swell of her breasts.

Her breasts, he only now realizes, that are unbound and covered only by a thin layer of fabric. It dawns on him now why she’d been so reluctant to remove her coat in the bar, but she’d parted with it without so much as a second thought once they were alone.

“Do you think it’s weird?” she asks suddenly, giving the neck of her chemise a modest tug upwards. “That I bind my chest?”

A sickening feeling of guilt smothers him as he realizes she must have caught his wandering gaze, however brief it may have been. He can’t bring himself to look at her right away, focusing instead on the high-beamed ceiling and praying to whatever deity calls the rafters home that he’ll be forgiven for the mistake.

He steels himself and locks eyes once more, and though she doesn’t regard him with anger, he feels compelled to apologize. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t— I hadn’t intended to look…”

He’s overcome with an urge to hide, embarrassment and shame coloring his cheeks unmistakably scarlet. But there’s no room for the secrecy he’d been so adamant about maintaining between them now, and he can do nothing but await her judgment with baited breath.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, and he is; not only for the lack of discipline, but the fact that for a brief moment his treacherous thoughts entertained the fantasy of placing a kiss atop each one. “And, no, I don’t. I’m not of a mind to judge or dictate what others should do with their bodies.” He recalls his blatant disapproval of her smoking habit with a grimace and amends that statement. “As long as it doesn’t come at a detriment to their health.”

A’lyhia laughs, though there’s a meekness to it that he hadn’t thought possible from her; a quiet sound that lacks her usual rasp. She presses her forehead against his chest, effectively hiding her face. Perhaps then she could forgive his earlier cowardice. 

“I don’t mind,” she murmurs. Her hand clutches the fabric of his tank top, as if she’s afraid he’ll slip away into the unforgiving cold of the night. “Not when it’s you. I’ve never told you why I do it, have I?”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” G’raha is quick to say. “You shouldn’t feel obliged.”

“I don’t,” A’lyhia responds, adamant as she’s always been. “And I do want to. I’ll tell you sometime, just— not now. I don’t want to ruin this with...with all of that.”

G’raha sucks in a breath. He’s tempted to ask her to give whatever this is a name when he himself is too afraid to do so.

A’lyhia curls into his chest like a lover seeking solace. “I think this is the first time I’ve ever felt comfortable sharing a bed with a man.”

He dares to run his fingers through her hair, brushing aside strands that have managed to slip free from the braid she’d hastily done on the way to the bar. 

“Lyhia…”

“Raha,” she replies, pulling back just enough to peer up at him before responding to the gesture in kind.

Her nails gently graze his temple as she removes his clips, and a shiver runs through him like a jolt of levin at the thought of what they might feel like elsewhere.

She’s close, tantalizingly so. His nose brushes against hers, and he catches the lingering scent of hot chocolate on her shallow breath. His gaze fixes on her lips for a fleeting moment, but even that feels like a transgression in this microcosm they’ve created.

Her lidded eyes are far more shameless in their staring. A hand comes up to caress his cheek, and her thumb traces along the edge of his bottom lip.

How he longs to do the same to her with his tongue, to commit each little imperfection to memory. 

“Raha,” she says again, far bolder than he when it comes to breaking the silence between them. The air itself feels stretched taut, and she brazenly plucks at the fraying threads that are keeping it from snapping; an entropic force, inching them ever closer towards chaos. “May I ask something of you?”

That she would still feel compelled to ask, even after she herself had granted him no shortage of favors, attests to her humility. It spurs the conviction in his response, granting him the resolve to speak candidly.

“Anything.”

Her words are an entreaty, but to him they may as well be a commandment. 

“Touch me…”

He’d been naive to think that his newfound hunger wouldn’t extend to all matters physical. 

The restoration of his youth had breathed life back into dormant urges, and A’lyhia’s request leaves him at their mercy. G’raha’s thoughts are a cacophony of half-formed fantasies that yearn for release. He would be appalled with himself, but in A’lyhia’s resolute gaze he sees those same desires waiting for an opportunity to manifest.

Like the goddess he hears her pray to only in her most dire moments, he is the Warden. Only he bears the keys to the shackles that bind them.

“How would you have me?” G’raha asks. He cups her cheek, finding that the courage to do more has eluded him in this moment of uncertainty. 

“Kiss me,” A’lyhia says. “Godsdamnit, Raha, kiss me.”

He obliges with the fervor of a man who had spent a lifetime longing to do just that.

G’raha brings his lips to her own, nearly knocking their noses together in his haste. It’s as unrefined as one could anticipate from a man unversed in such matters, but what he lacks in technique, he more than makes up for with enthusiasm. 

A’lyhia responds in kind. She takes his bottom lip between her teeth and sucks, making him whimper and pull her flush against him. She gasps as he handles her with such ease, giving him the perfect opening to tease the tip of her tongue with a brush of his.

She lets out a quiet moan that could have been concealed by the creaking of the bed, were she not pinned against G’raha. It ignites something carnal in him that drives him to earn another. G’raha grows bolder with his tongue, tasting first her lip - just as he’d entertained the thought of doing - before indulging in her mouth. He commits each noise of approval to memory; ever diligent, even in matters such as this.

They eventually settle into a rhythm, a synchronous movement of their bodies that is only interrupted when G’raha pulls back to breathe. A’lyhia doesn’t let him stray far, her grip on his top like a vice that beckons him ever closer. Her own chest heaves against his as she, too, is forced to catch her breath, and G’raha notices that her chemise has drifted dangerously low.

“Lyhia,” he says, giving her strap a gentle tug to try and remedy the problem. “Your—”

“I already told you,” she says, sounding far more breathless than he. He feels compelled to ask if she’s ok, if the belabored beating of her imperfect heart has left her needing a moment to recover.

But he doesn’t get the chance, for in place of an explanation, she grabs her chemise by the hem and removes it in a single motion. 

_I don’t mind. Not if it’s you._

She’s stripped down to nothing but her smalls, and he suddenly feels entirely overdressed.

A’lyhia’s confidence seems to waver as he looks at her, naked save for the single garment hugging her hips. He’s unable to articulate a single intelligent thought, and she must take his silence for rejection rather than the anxiety of a man who has never known another so intimately. 

“I-I’m sorry,” she stammers, already scrambling to cover herself up with the sheet. “Raha, I’m so sorry if I was too- too forward.”

“Lyhia, wait.”

He grabs her by the wrist to stop her. She watches as he carefully pulls the sheet away, giving him an opportunity to appreciate her with his wits somewhat about him.

She’s kept her breasts bound as long as he’s known her. He recalls those early days in Silvertear, how he had once carelessly inquired about the bandages beside her bedroll, and how she had responded with her characteristic antagonism towards him at the time — not that he could blame her for it in that instance, given how shamelessly blasé he’d been about what was such a personal matter to her. 

He cringes at his own lack of social decorum in those days. Knowing now what the purpose of them had been, though, he’s grateful to Tataru and her skills as a seamstress for providing A’lyhia with a proper binder.

And he’s even more grateful to A’lyhia for trusting him. Affection towards the woman who would allow herself to be vulnerable around him swells in his chest, and he doesn’t quite realize the extent of his feelings until she brings them to his attention.

“Raha, are you crying?”

“What?” It takes a moment for him to register that his vision has gone slightly blurry, and once it does he stubbornly rubs away the moisture that has tracked down his cheeks. “Forgive me, I’m— this is becoming something of a habit isn’t it…”

She hesitates before reaching over to wipe away a lingering tear. “You have nothing to apologize for,” she soothes him, and he can’t help but feel guilty that she would offer him such assurances when he feels he owes her exactly that. 

“I’m just so happy that you would trust me with this,” he finally manages to say. He can’t help but laugh, elated by his confession, and concedes that the emotional whiplash must be bizarre to witness.

“Godsdamnit.” Her lip quivers as she makes an attempt to hold back her own catharsis, but it’s a losing battle. His sentimentality must be infectious, and she gives him a weak shove as she laughs through her own tears. “You bastard, Raha, you had me so scared for a moment.”

G’raha removes his tank top and uses it to help dry her eyes, giving her forehead an apologetic nuzzle. “I suppose that some things never change.”

He kicks off his sleep pants as well. A shiver makes him acutely aware of how little remains between them now. The fire continues to blaze in the background, each crackle a pointed reminder of the goal they’d lost somewhere along the way.

“Huh. I believe this defeats the purpose of trying to keep warm,” G’raha muses. 

A’lyhia, whose gaze has drifted down to his smalls, doesn’t seem to recognize the irony in this. “What?”

G’raha curls his tail around her thigh as he leans in. “Are you still cold?”

That snaps her out of her reverie. She only now notices the gooseflesh dotting her skin, and her lips curl into an appropriately suggestive smirk as she says, “Are you going to do something about it?”

He responds with a kiss before he can ruin the moment with more fumbled words and prolonged silences. She purrs as he claims her mouth with a newfound confidence, one that is mirrored by his hands as they run along the slight curve of her hips and tease the sensitive skin covering her ribs.

“Would you-“ His train of thought is lost when she begins to suck on his neck. He swallows, feeling the heat of her mouth send a pulse of want between his thighs. His hands rest idly above her hips, afraid to venture upwards where his eyes can’t help but wander. “May I touch— would you be ok if I…?”

A’lyhia nips at his ear, and this time he can’t help but rut against her leg as she turns his request into a demand.

“Put your hands on my chest, Raha.”

Thaliak preserve, he couldn’t have chosen a better guiding star.


	2. Chapter 2

There was no sign of A’lyhia, even as the last few lights around camp winked into oblivion.

G’raha was more concerned by her absence than opposed to the prospect of what it entailed, or so he was content to tell himself. He couldn’t recall the last restful night he’d had, not since the fates had seen fit to pair him with the esteemed Warrior of Light on this venture. 

He’d been nursing a wounded pride ever since he was excluded from those first forays into the Tower. The sleep deprivation did little to improve his outlook on things, as he had pointedly written in his journal on a few occasions.

The proximity of the lake helped to mitigate what had been a sweltering heat wave that summer, but the air in his tent was still unpleasantly warm. Sweat stippled his brow, leaving his bangs damp and clinging to his flushed skin. A lone lantern provided him with light as he skimmed through the book perched atop his knees, stripped down to a sleeveless top and shorts.

He knew that the unmistakable glow of his tent in the late hours of the night, long after the rest of NOAH had retired to rest for the next day’s excursion, would earn him the criticism of his peers. Yet despite what he might tell himself otherwise, it didn’t feel right to sleep until he knew his companion was safe in her bedroll.

‘Companion’ seemed like a generous term, G’raha thought with chagrin, given A’lyhia’s rather frigid demeanor around him. But he was nothing if not an optimist, and still — perhaps naively, he conceded — held on to the hope that something might have shifted between them after last night; a departure from the hostility she’d harbored for him ever since he’d introduced himself, at the very least.

Her notable absence seemed to suggest otherwise. G’raha tried not to assume the worst, but it became increasingly difficult to focus on his text.

A pack of hippogryphs yowled somewhere to the north. His hand itched to reach for his bow.

His worries were proven to be unwarranted when a moment later he heard the rustle of the tent flap. A’lyhia ducked inside after fiddling with the zipper, greeting him with a hushed, “Hey.”

“It’s late,” G’raha remarked. If he sounded accusatory, he couldn’t bring himself to apologize for it. Silvertear was not a place to be traversed alone at night, even by a seasoned adventurer such as herself. 

A’lyhia shrugged. “And yet, here you are. I won’t tattle if you don’t.”

“Deal,” G’raha relented with a sigh. He set his book aside and prepared to settle in for what would likely be one of their last nights together, given the progress Cid’s team had been making. 

A few more nights of tossing and turning and trying to puzzle out how someone so small could produce such monstrous noise. He wasn’t sure if he was more elated by the prospect of getting some proper sleep, or disappointed that he had yet to crack this enigma. 

“Here.”

He looked up to see A’lyhia extending a mug towards him. G’raha raised a brow, prompting her to explain.

“It’s a little something to help with headaches,” she said. “Figured you could use some, since….”

She gestured at her eye, mirroring his Allagan one. It was odd to see her fumble her words. She always seemed so casual and carefree when speaking with their comrades, even in the face of the perils that the Tower unleashed upon her. 

A’lyhia did not have the same eloquence as the writers that would surely pen fantastic tales of her exploits, but G’raha had never known her to be the type to stumble through conversation, either. 

He wondered if it was a symptom of their strained relationship, or a sign that the barrier between them had finally started to break down. Just yesterday he would have passed the latter off as wishful thinking, but the proffered drink told him that his hope was not entirely misplaced.

“Thank you.”

G’raha carefully accepted it. Her hands were warm in the brief moment of contact they had, but the exchange still felt somewhat cold; more of a business transaction than a kind gesture between friends.

The tea had an unusual aroma, but he could pick out a couple scents belonging to native herbs of Mor Dhona. The thought of her scavenging through the marshland’s vegetation to personally procure them was touching, but the notion of her toiling away in the hot sun for his sake was less so. 

He didn’t realize he was looking at the tea with a furrowed brow and worried lip until A’lyhia said, “It’s not poisoned, I promise. Contrary to what you might believe, I’m not that petty.”

Retribution for last night’s dinner. The thought hadn’t crossed his mind, and he couldn’t quite tell if she was telling a joke or being sincere. 

“I have no reason to assume you would need to resort to such underhanded tactics to take me out,” G’raha said. “Not after I’ve seen what you can do with an axe.”

A’lyhia looked taken aback by the compliment. She studied him with an owlish gaze, as if waiting for him to take it back or follow up with some snide remark about her less flattering qualities, but he had no such thing to offer. 

Her lack of faith in him stung, but he chose not to dwell on it when they were both navigating unknown territory in this...friendship? G’raha was hesitant to call it that just yet.

“Cheers,” he said, before taking a sip. 

The tea went down easily, to his surprise. It was far more pleasant than the bitter concoctions that the chiurgeons in his tribe had given him in his youth. He took another drink, savoring the hint of spice that gave the tea a tasteful kick before meeting A’lyhia’s expectant gaze.

“It’s quite good,” he said. His ears twitched as if to sing their own praises. “Thank you, A’lyhia.”

“Yeah, well…” A’lyhia scratched at the bridge of nose. “I’ve been dealing with headaches most of my life. Figured it might help you with yours.”

“Most of your life? So, not just from the Echo, then.”

“Nope. Can’t blame it all on Hydaelyn’s ‘blessing,’” A’lyhia said dryly. She winced as she plopped down on her bedroll, likely still sore from that day’s training. “Oof. Yeah. Been this way since I was a kid.”

“I can sympathize,” G’raha murmured. “I imagine it made having a normal childhood more difficult. Did you have to miss out on doing a lot of things with your friends?”

A’lyhia’s laughter belied the sad truth of her words. “You assume that I had any.”

“Ah.” G’raha stared at his tea in the awkward silence that followed. He wondered if he’d be able to catch a glimpse of the eye that had condemned him to a similar fate reflected back at him. “That makes two of us, then.”

Their conversation abruptly ceased. In the ensuing quiet G’raha could make out the faint sound of the lake lapping at the shoreline; a perpetual give and take between the land and water that was watched over by the dormant Midgardsormr.

“Thank you again,” he said, “for the tea. Have you...come across any other remedies over the years?”

“Hm.” A’lyhia squinted up at the roof of the tent as she considered his question. “Sometimes an orgasm helps.”

Tea seeped down the front of G’raha’s shirt as he managed to completely miss his mouth. Mercifully, A’lyhia either didn’t notice, or couldn’t be bothered to make fun of him for it.

“I-I see. I, um, I can’t say I’ve ever had someone to test that, um, that hypothesis with.”

She turned towards him with a smirk. “You’ve got two hands and a perfectly good imagination.”

As he floundered for a response to that, her expression softened.

“Too friendly?” she asked. 

“No,” G’raha said once he managed to find his voice. “No, it’s just that, in all the times I’ve heard about you, none of those anecdotes have mentioned that you can be quite so….”

“Charming?” A’lyhia suggested, but it was obvious from her wary smile that she didn’t believe it herself.

G’raha brushed the sweaty fringe from his eyes so that he could get a proper look at her. She was lying on her back, one leg draped over the other, arms folded behind her head. Despite the sheepish turn her demeanor had taken, it was the most relaxed he had seen her in this tent, and he wasn’t going to ruin the moment. 

“I was going to say crude,” he admitted, “but you do have your own charms that hearsay can’t capture.” 

“Aren’t you a sweet talker,” A’lyhia drawled, but G’raha caught a playful glint in her eye and quirk to her lips that he’d never before been on the receiving end of. “Drink your tea, G’raha. It’ll help you sleep better, too.”

That promise had him throwing it back with perhaps a little too much gusto, but in that moment he didn’t mind hacking up his dignity if it meant this peace between them could last.

___

The same lack of experience that he’d once confessed to now leaves him feeling at a loss. 

G’raha’s touch is featherlight as he cups her breast, even with the enthusiastic permission she has just given him. Despite all the times in his youth that he’d fantasized about doing exactly this, he feels like he’s fumbling. There’s a flush creeping up his exposed neck, and suddenly he’s the one possessed by the urge to hide. 

She doesn’t give him the opportunity. A’lyhia places her hand over G’raha’s to give him the assurance he desperately craves.

“Relax,” she says. “It’s just me. I promise I don’t bite.”

His ear twitches as if it begs to differ.

“Much,” A’lyhia corrects herself with a devious little smile. 

“I’m sorry,” G’raha mutters. “I just — I haven’t done this before. I believe it may have come up, back in….”

“Back in Silvertear,” A’lyhia says. “I remember. I just thought — you were in Norvrandt for so long, I had assumed….”

G’raha shakes his head solemnly. 

A’lyhia’s expression is not one of pity, as a part of him might have feared, but she looks as if she’s lamenting the years he’s spent in solitude. She tilts his chin up so he doesn’t have the opportunity to look away and utter assurances that a century of loneliness was no big sacrifice to make.

“You really were alone all those years?” she asks. “I know you had Lyna, but — what about friends? Lovers?”

“The people of the Crystarium were my friends,” G’raha says with a swiftness that betrays his response’s habitual nature. 

The Exarch had always been as enigmatic to the citizens of the First as the Tower that laid claim to his flesh. It was rare for someone to be bold enough to inquire about the Exarch’s personal life, let alone from the man himself. Those few who dared to ask were always given the same coy smile and rehearsed reply.

G’raha holds nothing but the utmost respect for those who looked to him for leadership, yet he knows it isn’t the same as having a confidante to share your burdens with, a loved one to find sanctuary in at the end of the day. 

A’lyhia knows this too. She pulls G’raha into an embrace, letting him rest his head on her chest while she runs her fingers soothingly through his tousled hair.

“I apologize. Talking about this is something of a mood killer, isn’t it?” G’raha says. He closes his eyes, losing himself in the feeling of her undoing the messy remnants of his plait and the muffled sound of her heartbeat. 

“Dammit, Raha, you’re going to make me cry again.” A’lyhia tries to stem the tide by taking a few steadying breaths. “A hundred years alone and you have the balls to act like everything was fine.”

“I’m sorry,” G’raha repeats.

He hadn’t expected his self-imposed isolation to affect her so deeply. To him, it had simply been another necessary sacrifice in a long chain of decisions that would end with the salvation of two stars.

He’d been living on borrowed time. All roads had led to the Rift, and he’d had no plans to bring lingering regrets along with the primordial light. 

“And I don’t care about the sex,” A’lyhia continues. Her tail thumps against the mattress, offended by the very notion that she would. “I care about _you,_ dammit. About what _you_ want.”

“I want you,” G’raha blurts out. Instinct has its finger on the trigger, and he’s of no mind to stop it. “I’m... scared. Scared of messing things up between us. Of losing my best friend. But I want to try, Lyhia. I want you to be my first.”

Perhaps now a century of denial, of locking away his personhood beneath titles and a gilded cowl, is finally catching up with him. He refuses to hide any longer and pries himself from the refuge of her arms. 

The capabilities of this new-old body are a blessing that he will never again take for granted. In a smooth motion he rolls them so that she’s beneath him, caged between his hands and knees.

“Is this ok?” G’raha asks. He feels breathless not from the exertion, but rather the sight that greets him: the woman he transcended human limitations to save, alive and well and at the mercy of his touch.

A’lyhia nods as she takes a moment to find her voice. Her hair fans out like a halo of inkwell black, and G’raha plays with a silken tendril as he waits for her to speak.

“Yes,” she says, threading her fingers through his. “And don’t for a second think you can mess this up.”

He has a habit of overthinking things, he knows. He chooses to blame it on the lifetime he’d spent meticulously planning a future for the First and the Source. 

But now the Tower is sealed, the rains have ceased, and they are both hale and whole to see the beautiful day that awaits them. For the first time since G’raha accepted the burden of his ancestors, he is being given permission to let go, to lose himself to something more passionate and primal than the gods the beastmen revere. 

A’lyhia beckons him closer. G’raha is in her thrall, and can do nothing but obey.

“Make love to me, Raha,” she whispers.

For three hundred years the world had whittled away at G’raha Tia, leaving him a stranger to the man who would don the title of Exarch. A’lyhia deftly sifts through the ruin and rubble to pick up the pieces of who he was and could still be, and with that single request restores the life that he had been so ready to lose. 

G’raha captures her lips with an urgency and confidence he hadn’t possessed before. A’lyhia’s surprised grunt is muffled by his domineering mouth, and he takes advantage of that moment to slip his tongue in and taste her. 

That dreadful hot chocolate still clings to her breath but he can’t find it in himself to be bothered, not when she’s gripping his hips with her knees and urging him even closer. 

And who would he be to deny her?

“Fuck,” A’lyhia hisses as he ruts against her, bringing his still-clothed arousal in contact with hers. 

The friction already sends a heady rush of pleasure up G’raha’s spine, and he can feel himself getting hard. His cock twitches in his smalls with each rock of his hips, and every curse that she utters in response appeals to something carnal, something _male_ in his core.

G’raha huffs a laugh against her neck. “Your language is as colorful as ever.”

A’lyhia gives his arse a spiteful pinch, causing him to yelp. “I don’t want to hear it from the man who’s about to _fuck_ me.”

“Is that what I’m doing?” G’raha teases, and he belies any innocence in that question with a thrust. “I thought we were making love.”

“Insufferable,” A’lyhia mutters. “What happened to the shy virgin that was scared to touch a woman’s chest?”

Her words are breathy and lacking in her usual bite. She compensates with her teeth, nipping and sucking on his neck with a fervor that will surely leave a blooming red mark.

Propriety would have him cover it. The lust-addled part of him would rather parade around the Holy See with the Warrior’s brand on display, delicate Ishgardian sensibilities be damned. But he holds far too much respect for the woman who had welcomed him into her bed to make a show of their intimacy, to treat the fact that he had known her pleasure as a mere badge of honor. 

“I told you Lyhia,” G’raha says. He trails kisses along her jaw, down the slope of her neck to the peak of her collarbones, retracing the path his wandering gaze had tred until he stops just above her breasts, “you have a way of bringing out the young man in me.”

A young man who is quickly becoming reacquainted with an appetite for all things physical — something he’d denied himself beneath the mantle of Exarch, but now finds himself enthralled by. 

She had asked — demanded — that he put his hands on her chest. Instead he presses an open-mouthed kiss to each one, spurred on by the way she shivers and gasps beneath him from the slightest graze of his teeth. 

When he takes her nipple between his lips and brushes it with his tongue, her tail thrashes against the mattress. 

“Ah….”

“Sensitive?” he asks, grinning against her chest with self-satisfaction.

She scowls down at him, even as the flush of her skin betrays her enjoyment. 

When her lips then curve into a mischievous smile, he feels a jolt of fear and the thrill of anticipation at whatever retribution she has planned. 

“You have me at a bit of a disadvantage here,” A’lyhia says.

He doesn’t process the hand running down his chest and past the vee of his hips until it grabs his cock through the fabric of his smalls and squeezes.

G’raha sucks a breath in between his teeth. A’lyhia blinks at him with a faux innocence ill-befitting a woman who is making sinful promises with her fingers.

“Show me what I’m working with here,” she says. Her voice has always had something of a husky timbre to it, and she uses it now to her advantage. “Or would you rather just keep me guessing?”

“I....” G’raha’s mouth goes dry and he suddenly finds himself at a loss once more. She’s managed to gain the upper hand so easily, and he only now begins to understand why the whims of men are so easily swayed by arousal. 

Her fingers skim along his length, and he is powerless before her.

A’lyhia’s brow furrows when he doesn’t respond, making her look less the part of a wicked temptress, and more like his concerned best friend.

“You ok?” she asks, withdrawing her touch. 

“Yes,” he says, embarrassed by how quickly he misses the feeling of her hand on him. “Yes, I just — this is all so new. I don’t wish to leave you wanting.”

Her laughter is warm, and he’s content to ride it out with his face buried in the inviting swell of her breasts. 

“Raha, you couldn’t disappoint me if you tried,” she assures him, giving the base of his ear a soothing rub. “Because no matter what happens, at the end of the day, you’re you. And I happen to like you as you are.”

Her lips quirk with a self-deprecating smile then. Her hands go still as she speaks with an edge of uncertainty. “And...to be honest with you, Raha, I’m not that easy to disappoint. I’ve had a lot of bad sex with men.”

G’raha’s voice is muted as he refuses to pry his face from her chest just yet. “So your standards are low, then.”

“Well, yeah.” A’lyhia’s response is as candid as he would expect from her. “But that’s not the point I’m trying to make. What I mean is — gods, I’m making an arse of myself. I wanted to say that I think you’re, well, you’re the first man I’ve ever _really_ wanted this with. So none of that matters.”

She coaxes his head up so he has no choice but to bear witness to the tenderness in her gaze. 

“You’ve accomplished far greater things than bedding me, Raha. Please, let me touch you.”

G’raha nods his assent. “Please....”

There’s the familiar warmth of her hand. Once she’s content with teasing him through the fabric of his smalls, she hooks a finger into the hem and begins to tug them down. 

“All I—” G’raha’s voice escapes him for a moment as he feels her pull his cock free. Her calloused hands are gentle, teasingly so. “All I ask is that you give me some guidance.”

“Of course,” A’lyhia says. She sounds remarkably relaxed, given the somewhat obscene image she makes with his manhood in the palm of her hand. She works it with lazy strokes, giving him a minute to get comfortable with the idea. “I’ll show you how to bring someone pleasure. I just want to do the same for you.”

___

He’s warm and heavy in her hand. She prays that her mind will not wander to the last time she had known a man like this, that her thoughts will grant her the mercy of staying in this bed with someone she’d never thought she could come to hold such affection for. 

G’raha wets his lips, looking desperate to say something as she gives another languid stroke, but even the eloquent scholar’s words fail him in the face of physical gratification. 

“Hm?” A’lyhia hums, unsure if she wants to pry an intelligible response from him or just take satisfaction in having left him speechless. 

“Please.” G’raha pants against her neck, his breath enticingly warm against the chill. “I-I need….”

A’lyhia isn’t prepared to give up the advantage she now holds so easily. She plays it coy as she circles the tip of his cock with her thumb.

“Pardon?”

She hears something snap in G’raha. He lets out a low growl, one that has her every instinct demanding that she prostrate herself before him. 

“Faster….”

She is helpless before his will. His command has her rubbing her thighs together to stifle her own growing need.

He brings his mouth to her breasts once more as she strokes him with renewed vigor. Each twitch and throb of his cock has him fervently kissing and sucking her flesh, and the pace of her hand falters when his teeth graze her nipple.

A’lyhia chuckles as she gives him a breathless warning. “Play nice.”

“Sorry,” G’raha murmurs, but his lips do not stay idle. He continues to lavish her chest — something that had only ever brought her pain rather than pleasure — with attention, and she knows come morning her tits will be littered with the remnants of his affections. 

She gives his cock a squeeze, and suddenly he goes rigid. 

“Not yet,” G’raha hisses.

A’lyhia’s off of him in an instant. “Raha?”

He buries his nose in the crook of her neck and takes a few steadying breaths. “I don’t want to end things pr-prematurely.”

She can feel his arousal press against the apex of her thighs. That he would deny himself the climax he aches for, for the sake of partaking in it together has her seeking his lips once more.

“Here.” She pulls away after a moment to guide his hand down to her smalls. When he doesn’t immediately rip them off as she’d been anticipating, given his obvious enthusiasm, she chides him. “Now’s your chance to undress a lady. Don’t waste it.”

Her pantalettes are nothing special. Were she planning on fucking her best friend in an Ishgardian inn room she would have worn something more enticing for the occasion. But G’raha seems unbothered as he takes the fabric between his fingers and works it down her legs; so intently focused on his task, even, that she can hardly imagine he’d notice if she were wearing the lacy little garment she has buried in a drawer back at the Rising Stones.

He discards her smalls with more care than she had his. She isn’t sure whether to find the care he puts into setting her pantalettes aside flattering or funny. 

“Congratulations, G’raha Tia.” A’lyhia stretches, getting no shortage of satisfaction from the way his eyes now shamelessly rove over her naked body without the reservation he’d had before. “You’re about to become a man.”

“It’s an honor,” he says, completely sincere even in the face of her teasing. “What would you have me do?”

Wordlessly, she takes his hand — Spoken as it should be, with life’s drumbeat in the tips of his fingers — and brings it to her mouth. His pupils dilate slightly as he watches her wet his fingers with her tongue. She doesn’t intend to make a show of it, but she can’t help but think what it would be like to do the same with his cock, and allows herself to indulge in the act for a few moments longer than necessary.

She then guides his hand down between her legs. G’raha seems to be holding his breath with anticipation, and A’lyhia quietly reminds him to breathe as she brings his finger to her clit.

“This, right here? The key to a woman’s heart.”

G’raha nods in affirmation, ever the attentive student.

She takes his hand once more, this time bringing it between her folds.

“Ready me, ok?” she says. She tries to keep her voice steady even as he slips a finger into her entrance. “It’s— I haven’t been with a man, since I left my tribe.”

“Will I hurt you?” he asks, worry creasing his brow. He continues to circle her clit with his thumb, even as he withdraws from her heat. 

A’lyhia attempts to dispel both their nerves with a shake of her head, but to her dismay previous experiences rob her of her conviction.

“Just...go slow, ok?”

“Of course.”

G’raha presses a chaste kiss to her lips before turning his attention to her sex. He starts with a single finger, and she can already feel herself clenching down on him. Her abdominal muscles are tight, as much as she tries to will herself to relax, and it’s only when G’raha turns his focus back to her clit that she feels some of the tension leave her body.

“It’s just me,” G’raha whispers. Loves bites have started to form on her breasts from his earlier attention, and he leaves an apologetic kiss on each one. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah.” Her lip is slightly swollen where she’d taken it between her teeth. “Keep going.”

Her breathing grows more labored as he slides in a second finger. He gradually becomes bolder with his actions, letting his fingers scissor and curl against her walls. 

She’d never before been inclined to believe that penetration could bring her pleasure; but when G’raha finds a spot that has her thighs clamping around him and her lips parting with a wordless cry, her faith is restored. 

There’s adoration in every one of his movements. He asks before adding a third, even as she can feel his own need neglected between them. She reaches down and gives his cock a gentle squeeze; a promise of what’s to come that has G’raha’s rhythm faltering.

“Take me, Raha.” 

Her command is accompanied by a stroke, and she knows he can do naught but obey.

___

G’raha considers the woman beneath him. 

Her face is flushed crimson, her eyes hooded and alluring in a way he finds himself powerless to resist. Even as her body is already riddled with signs of his affections, inelegant in their execution but true in their intent, she beckons him even closer. 

_Slow_ is the mantra that guides him as he takes himself in hand. He lines up against her sex, resists the urge to slide right in and chase the high that he has never had the opportunity to know.

A’lyhia’s breath hitches when he presses in that first ilm. He pauses to grab her hand and let her use him to find her equilibrium.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs.

He laments the fact that she had ever known pain, and knows he can do nothing but resolve himself to do better by her.

A tentative rock of his hips has him sliding in another few ilms. Her grip on his hand slowly loosens as he utters assurances and praise into her ear, words of adulation at having the privilege to know her in the most vulnerable of ways. 

Her nails graze his back, calling him closer still. His lips are only a breath away from her own when she gives voice to the thought he’d never had the courage to say.

“I love you.”

His hips tap against the prominence of hers. He’s surrounded by her warmth, and he is home.

___

“Seven Hells, Raha. A hundred years of chastity really did a number on you.” 

A’lyhia’s standing in front of the glamour dresser’s mirror, surveying the evidence of last night’s tryst with what G’raha hopes isn’t regret.

He crouches down to peer beneath the bed in what is becoming an increasingly futile effort to find his smalls. “I apologize, I hope it’s nothing you can’t cover.”

She stops tracing the marks on her breasts to stare at him through the mirror. “Don’t start saying you’re sorry now. C’mere.”

G’raha gives up on finding his clothes to stand behind her. When he doesn’t commit to wrapping his arms around her waist, she takes matters into her own hands, holding him close.

“I happened to like it, you know,” A’lyhia says. “Seeing that part of you. Your pleasure is a beautiful thing, Raha. Thank you for sharing it with me.”

“I should be saying that to you.” G’raha rests his chin on her shoulder and closes his eyes, savoring the feeling of her pressed up against him. “Thank you, Lyhia. But I am sorry about your, um, your chest.”

She doesn’t admonish him for the apology this time. “It’s fine. I got your virtue in exchange.”

He doesn’t have a clever response to dignify that with, so he simply buries his face in her neck and takes a moment to enjoy her scent and the sense of pride at how it’s tinged with his own. 

“I hope we didn’t keep any of those craftsmen up,” A’lyhia muses. “I can’t imagine Aymeric will be pleased if we derailed the reconstruction efforts with our debauchery.”

G’raha looks up, mortified. “We weren’t— you don’t think we were that loud, do you?”

“Probably not, but who knows? Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been branded a heretic.” 

A’lyhia pulls away with a devilish smile to fetch her clothes, leaving a befuddled G’raha to cope with the idea.

“You can be quite wicked sometimes, you know,” he says.

“Of course.” A’lyhia plucks her chemise out of the rumpled sheet that had fallen off the bed. “Why do you think I didn’t have any friends?”

He watches as she slips the garment back on, covering up her love-bitten breasts.

“For your eyes only,” she says with a wink.

Her bravado quickly fades when G’raha grabs her hand and pulls her into an embrace.

“It’s an honor,” he says, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “To count myself among your friends.”

She clutches his shoulder, offering assurance where her words fail her.

“Sweet talker,” she says, but the accusation falls flat when her tail flirts with his own.

“Guilty as charged.” 

He leans back and tilts her head up, leaving her with nowhere to hide, and he lays bare the feelings he never thought he’d live to see realized.

“I love you, Lyhia, and I’ve never been happier to be alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to Blue for beta'ing, and thank you for reading! Your comments mean a lot to me.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're interested in joining a nice and supportive community of writers, please check out [Emet-Selch's Wholesomely Debauched and Enabling Book Club](https://discord.gg/enabling-debauched-xivfic)!


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